1. Field of the Invention:
The present invention generally relates to a food cutting apparatus or a so-called food processor which may be mainly used at home in general for slicing or shredding vegetables or the like into short and small pieces, fine chips, etc.
2. Description of the Prior Art:
Generally, electric food processors of the above described type have been broadly classified into two kinds based on movement of the cut pieces subjected to cutting by a disc-shaped cutter driven for rotation by a motor within a container, one kind of which is referred to as a cut piece storage type which accommodates the cut pieces within the container, while the other kind is called a cut piece discharge type which is arranged to discharge the cut pieces out of the container.
In the known electric food processors of the above described type, the food processor of the cut piece discharge type adapted to discharge the cut pieces out of the container has been generally constituted by a main body in which an electric motor is incorporated, a container placed on the main body, a disc-shaped cutter driven by the electric motor for rotation within the container, a disc member positioned below the cutter for rotation in the same direction as that of the cutter so as to discharge the cut pieces processed by the cutter out of the container, a container lid for covering an opening of the container, and a push rod for depressing material to be cut towards the cutter through a cylindrical feed tube or charge port provided in part of said container lid, etc. Moreover, the disc-shaped cutter and the disc member for discharging the cut pieces may be adapted to be replaced by an S-shaped cutter so as to enable cutting or shredding within the container.
The conventional electric food processor of the cut piece discharge type constructed in the above described manner is capable of continuously effecting a large amount of cutting without being limited by the size of the container, but there has been such an inconvenience that the material to be processed must be preliminarily cut into small pieces for charging through the cylindrical charge port of the food processor. Another disadvantage in the known food processor as described above is such that, although it is preferable to rotate the disc-like cutter at low speed to prevent the cut pieces from losing shape, performance of the food processor is undesirably lowered particularly during use of the S-shaped cutter as referred to above.